Steven Pinker: How Innuendo Makes Things Work

RSA has rolled out its lat­est ani­mat­ed video, and it’s a good one. This time we have Steven Pinker, the famed Har­vard lin­guist and cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist, try­ing to make sense of innu­en­do. Why do we often say things in veiled terms, espe­cial­ly when every­one knows what’s real­ly being said? Pinker breaks it all down, and explains how lan­guage pro­vides the grease that lubri­cates every­day social rela­tion­ships.

This clip is an excerpt from a longer lec­ture pre­sent­ed at the Roy­al Soci­ety of the Arts in Lon­don. Watch the full talk here, and scroll through pre­vi­ous RSA Ani­mat­ed videos right here.